


the words we do not say

by chrysalizzm



Category: One Piece
Genre: Established Roronoa Zoro/Monkey D. Luffy, Fluff, Implied Nami/Nefertari Vivi, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, OFC - Freeform, Protective Mugiwara no Ichimi | Straw Hat Pirates, Roronoa Zoro Is Whipped, at one point brook just. pops off his head. if that squicks you out, but like a really shitty one, oh shit i forgot a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 07:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18806203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysalizzm/pseuds/chrysalizzm
Summary: Zoro narrows his eye slightly, then closes it and nods. “Right, okay,” he repeats, and starts off after Luffy, who’s already on land and waving his arms, hollering like a lunatic. Then he stops, tilts his head, and squints into the devastatingly white-blue sky. “Huh. What’s the date today?”“What?” says Nami. Zoro asks again, and Nami bites her thumbnail in thought. “Um… December 24. Why?”Zoro just stands there for a long, long moment.





	the words we do not say

Zoro looks all of them over once, then scrubs his hand over his face. “This girl’s been dogging after him all week?”

The crew, in turn, winces and avoids his eye. Beside him, Luffy fidgets, always antsy, always ready to buzz out of his skin.

Zoro’s gaze flits over each of them in turn - Brook rattles nervously, Chopper yelps and dives behind Franky’s legs, Franky clears his throat awkwardly, Robin calmly returns his stare, Nami arches her brow and purses her lips, Sanji rolls his eyes - before settling on Usopp with a sense of finality. Usopp whimpers. 

“And why,” says Zoro, with admirable composure, “hasn’t anyone told me before now.”

“Wrong punctuation,” squeaks Usopp.

Zoro makes a sudden movement, as though he’ll snap at Usopp, but a sharp look from Robin stops him. He visibly restrains a frustrated sigh and nods his head at the sniper, who managed to stay completely still while Zoro had feinted at him.

“Um… we thought we could handle it?” Usopp says, phrasing his answer more like a suggestion.

“Wrong punctuation,” says Zoro dryly.

Franky claps Usopp on the shoulder discreetly, which helps Usopp stand a little straighter as he states, a little more firmly, “We thought we could handle it.” He falters, then gestures at Zoro. “Especially considering… your condition.”

Zoro looks at him blankly, as though there aren’t a swath of white bandages cutting across his dark chest, as though Sandai Kitetsu hadn’t spun out of his hand fifteen days ago and laid its blade right over the angry scar from three years past and lovingly sliced him right back open.

“Well, you’re here now,” he says finally, letting it go rather than haggling over his state of wellbeing like he would have once, long before. “What’s wrong?”

Everyone relaxes at that. For all that they pretend to step all over their childish captain and blustering first mate, they respect both and their authority as much as they can in their close-knit little family adrift in the endless ocean, and Zoro’s approval, Zoro at their backs, means more than they can imagine. As much a brother as most of them can get.

Robin pipes up, her amicable smile juxtaposed against her clinical statement: “Things have escalated, as you can imagine with a girl of that character. She was only passionately declaring her undying love at first - ” Brook and Usopp hide twin grins at the sarcasm in her voice when she describes the girl, “ - but soon she was following Luffy around everywhere, even though we tried to dissuade her. I suppose the final straw was when we very explicitly told her he wasn’t interested, and she said, rather imperiously in my humble opinion, ‘I’ll make him interested’.”

“Did you try the ‘he’s gay’ excuse?” asks Franky, peering over his sunglasses.

Nami groans at that. “It’s one of _those_ towns. I was in a shop, talking about Vivi and how she’s my _girlfriend_ and how I’m thinking about _marrying her_ , and this douchebag says, ‘Oh, I love how you youngsters talk about your friends these days!’” She shakes her head in disgust. “Fucking heteronormativity.”

Zoro absorbs all of this without comment, then turns to Luffy, and starts to ask, “Luffy, what do you - ” which, okay, the rest of the crew doesn’t take offense. It’s not like Zoro takes final orders from any of them. He doesn’t look at the rest of them like they hung the sun and stars, even though he looks at them like they’re those stars after enough painkillers. He was _Luffy’s_ first crewmate. If Luffy vetoes executive action, there’s nothing they can do about it, and Chopper is already turning away with disappointment in his slumped shoulders.

But Luffy, sweet simple Luffy who smiles like the sun rising and lives ambitiously, fiercely, kindly - looks disgruntled. He scrunches up his nose when Zoro looks at him, and Zoro immediately says, “Right. Okay. Let’s go. You and me.”

There’s a low, collective sigh of relief that dies when Zoro glances back, giving Luffy a little push to walk him off the ship. “What I’m gonna do will probably get us kicked off this godforsaken island,” he warns. “Any of you got a problem with that?”

 _Do you want me to stop_ , is what he’s asking.

And they all shake their heads. Even Sanji, who saw a butcher shop with a variety of choice cuts he’s been itching to get his hands on. Even Chopper, who wanted to swing by the traditional apothecary in the town square and see if he could discover any new ingredients. Even Robin, who could have spent hours in the colossal library that towers over most of the thatched roofs in town.

 _No_ , is what they don’t say. _Just like you, we’ll give anything for him_.

Zoro narrows his eye slightly, then closes it and nods. “Right, okay,” he repeats, and starts off after Luffy, who’s already on land and waving his arms, hollering like a lunatic. Then he stops, tilts his head, and squints into the devastatingly white-blue sky. “Huh. What’s the date today?”

“What?” says Nami. Zoro asks again, and Nami bites her thumbnail in thought. “Um… December 24. Why?”

Zoro just stands there for a long, long moment. 

He hums, quietly. Then he vaults over the railing and slings his arm over Luffy’s shoulders, and they disappear into the maze of streets.

The rest of them watch the two go, then Brook claps his hands together and announces cheerfully, “Well, my interest is piqued. Let’s follow them!”

Usopp’s eyes bug out to the size of Luffy’s dinner plates. “Brook, if Zoro sees us tailing them, forget the One Piece. The Strawhat Pirates are gonna cease to exist in a heartbeat.”

Sanji thumbs a cigarette lazily. “Look,” he points out, “if Marimo’s about to cleave this stupid town in half to get us exiled forever, I want to watch.”

“You certainly drive a hard bargain, Sanji,” murmurs Robin thoughtfully.

Chopper leaps up to land on Franky’s forearm, his hooves clasped. “I want to watch, too!”

Usopp throws his hands up. “Unbelievable,” he says in mock horror, his opposition to the suggestion melting away in the face of their combined righteous anger. “This is mutiny. I can’t believe any of you.”

Nami winks at him. “Take it in stride, it makes your life easier,” she says, and is the first to jump off the deck.

[...]

“There she is,” hisses Franky, hitting the wall so fast he nearly crushes Robin.

“She looks like an airhead,” whispers Nami, while Franky apologizes profusely to a giggling Robin and Chopper pokes his head out to get a closer look. The girl in question is tall and busty, wearing what amounts to a collection of strings, with tangled golden hair and legs that go on for miles. No one points out that, in any other case, Nami would be drooling over her.

She also has a wild look in her eyes and a wet pout on her face as she hones in on Luffy and sees him with a gruff older boy on his arm.

“Oh shit, here we go.” Sanji pulls Usopp’s arm and they both lean out further; Robin’s eyes sprout in a flurry of petals on top of Nami’s head; Chopper pops into Brain Point and peers out from between Brook’s legs; aforementioned skeleton pops off his head and holds it out for a better view; Franky’s neck cracks as he cranes it to see around the corner.

It happens as though in slow motion:

The girl striding in with an air of victory, other men goggling at her as she flounces past; Luffy’s hand catching on Zoro’s shoulder as he pulls him down to mouth something to his first mate; the girl stopping before them, the whole square’s eyes on them, as she puckers her lips to say something; Zoro, straightening up, lacing his fingers with Luffy’s. The girl stops in her tracks, her jaw hanging open, looking altogether like an idiot.

“Luffy,” says Zoro. His voice is low, but the crowd is so silent that the other Strawhats can hear it from their vantage point.

“Hm, Zoro?” Luffy is fidgeting again, distracted, energetic. 

“Luffy.” Zoro’s voice is softer now, and Luffy stops. Just… stops. No bouncing in place, no jiggling one leg, no buzzing like he’ll jump out of his skin. There is gravity in Zoro’s words and a sudden honey-slow realization.

“Oh,” says Luffy, and rises on his tiptoes. 

“Happy anniversary,” says Zoro, and they’re almost the same height like this when Zoro’s hands are on Luffy’s waist and Luffy’s fingers in Zoro’s hair and their lips are touching.

[...]

“Since when?” demands Nami, when they’ve hightailed it out of that hell town. The crew is seated around the table, polishing off their dinner, Luffy having eagerly wolfed down half their stores in half an hour with a huge grin on his face. “I’m the oldest crew member since you, you’d think I’d have known!”

“And why?” adds Chopper, his eyes sparkling and naive. He probably expects a sweet tale of romance, of wooing. Of cute flirty moments and eyes meeting across bars and hand-holding and kisses on temples, the easy and gentle love that is the only kind Chopper has known all his life.

Zoro sits back, his fingers fluttering against the corner of the gaping chasm of a scar just barely visible under the bandages, at the beginning. “Forever,” he says, his eyes satin soft, and even through the chaos that is a Strawhat meal everyone can hear him. “I’ve been his and he’s been mine forever.”

 _Since the first day_ , is what he doesn’t say. _Since the day sunshine incarnate undid my bindings and handed me my swords. Since the day he let me fight Mihawk all by myself like the idiot I was. Since the day he saved my sorry ass from Arlong, since the day we were at each other’s throats on a misunderstanding, since I realized that I didn’t deserve to go on but Luffy did_. 

_My one_ , he doesn’t say. _My only_.

The Strawhats hide their smiles when Luffy leaps across the table and sends Zoro sprawling onto the floor with him on top, laughing himself silly while Zoro scowls and grumbles and places a fleeting kiss in Luffy’s palms. He doesn’t have to say it; they can hear it loud and clear.

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone! it's been a while. i've been reading a lot and churning out too many ideas, and am thankful at least this one got finished. hopefully i'll be able to write some more once school is out,,
> 
> the significance of december 24: it's the release date of the op manga in japan, aka the first time luffy and zoro met. love these idiots, thanks for coming to my ted talk


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